


Lullaby

by Hermonthis



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Death and Reincarnation, F/M, One Shot, Spiritual, eternal love, life and death, spoilers for the entire series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 16:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11832804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermonthis/pseuds/Hermonthis
Summary: This man is a dreamer, and just the sort to steal her heart away. Without her love he will drift into orbit, his body spiraling away like a helium balloon and disappear amongst the twinkle of the stars.





	Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend to include Hinduism into the story, but the words wrote themselves that way. (June 2008)

For Julia, the world of the living and the world of the dreaming can never be interchanged. They are mutually exclusive, and must be detached at all times lest she spread her arms, dream of white wings, and throw herself backwards into the black pit of eternity. Go to sleep at last.

Space.

It can feel like forever.

The life she currently lives is a visceral experience, surviving day-to-day in an underground that lives aboveground, where men who wear suits and ties freely carry machine guns and knives in their breast pockets. Where women like her are known merely by her first name and the man who possesses her. A cardinal rule for all those who chose the mafia way, but even that imperative she manages to botch.

Her apartment and her bed are her refuge. The kitchen and the living room are just for show. She takes two men to her pillows, one out of love and the other out of guilt. She stirs the pot of beef stew and watches the leeks come to a boil. Somehow, the weak vegetable in her hands makes her eyes water. ( _Silly onions, she tells herself. Only bullets can make you cry._ )

She looks out of the window, and sees it is raining again.

Blue.

Green.

Blue.

This man is a dreamer, and just the sort of man to steal her heart away. The green hair, the cocky smile, the way he says her name. ( _Julia, Julia_ )

As if it is the last red string of fate that keeps him tied to Mars. Without it he will drift away into orbit, his body spiraling away from her like a helium balloon, and disappear amongst the twinkle of the stars.

( I need you, Julia. )

( I love you too, Spike. )

But lately she is aware that her nine cat lives are quickly coming to a close. As if Kali herself has come to her and left a whisper in her ear. Telling her to meet with the man who willingly fractured her carefully crafted sphere of golden hair and skin-tight leather.

"No more carnivals for you," _She_ says, and turns her palm upwards where a bright red rose looks horribly out of place with her blue-black skin and third eye situated in the middle of her forehead.

( Her men don't believe in religion. )

And she replies, "Why do you come to me?"

Between the sheets, sex is an out-of-body experience. Her golden hair fans around her like the crowning of the last sun when the cowboy rides her home. The taut muscles on his upper arms are smooth and pale as she takes her time touching him. Time is a precious commodity outside, but it is sacred in here. Her lungs fill up with water and tears as she takes the deep plunge into the ocean. Her fingers curl in anticipation as her sight takes on a misty view, and breaks through the surface. The stars twinkle like jewels embedded in a pitch-black underwater cave, and her voice echoes like the laughter of a newborn child.

She is all alone for now, but she knows that he will be right beside her. Treading the natural water that her home planet never had, she tilts her head back and parts her lips, relishing the cold taste of forgiveness that floods her mouth and makes her teeth ache.

This is what she is waiting for. This is where eternity lies. In several hours, or maybe lifetimes, they may be reincarnated again into different bodies, in separate times. The thought does not frighten her anyone, it never has. Subsisting one day at a time once was a struggle for her, but after the stray bullet that pierced her lungs, she feels that nothing can overcome her anymore. Not even the recycling current of the life-stream in this grotto.

She is home.


End file.
